With no competition yellow flags or pickup trucks with mud flaps and big No. 3 decals on back to slow me down, I was able to spend 6 hours, 4 minutes taking in the sights and sounds of NASCAR Race Day.
Motor Sports
March 1, 1998 — Inaugural Las Vegas 400, Mark Martin
In a city that has seen its fair share of successful one-man shows, Martin Truex Jr. turned in an impressive solo performance Sunday in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Kobalt 400.
Sunday
Quotes from Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Kobalt 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, from drivers who did well to drivers who didn’t do so well.
Jimmie Johnson had the best car early, leading half of the first 90 laps.
Kevin Harvick, the defending NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion, wins for the first time at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and moves into first in the points standings. He has finished first or second in six consecutive races.
Martin Truex Jr. is fifth in the standings after two races, and he will start eighth in today’s Kobalt 400. He liked his car so much on Saturday that Truex cut practice short early.
After a sometimes testy relationship with Richard Childress Racing, Kevin Harvick switched to Stewart-Haas and won the NASCAR championship. “I’m as happy as I’ve ever been,” he said.
If Brad Keselowski didn’t exist, NASCAR would have to invent him. Any sport needs a highlight-film villain so that fans can better identify the heroes.
Ticket sales for 2014 were down from 2013. But overall year-to-year revenue was slightly up, and restructuring debt to reduce it by $230 million during the past four years has helped, too.
It’s unusual for sports to pop up out of nowhere and become a regular staple on the Las Vegas odds boards, but NASCAR has created its own niche with the betting public, and that all occurred when a young kid from Vallejo, Calif., named Jeff Gordon won the inaugural Brickyard 400 in 1994.
